A study by Dr. Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, measures "a key component in America's social health by ranking the culture and resources for reading in America's 75 largest cities," according to a press release from CCSU.

The study uses six key factors to determine a city's literacy ranking: booksellers, educational attainment, Internet resources, library resources, newspaper circulation, and periodical publishing resources. That information is then compared against each city's population rate, which is then used to determine a per capita profile of a city's literacy.